Related

In the in-between time, I've been connecting family dots. I do genealogy, continuing ongoing research; a project 80 years long to date.

When typing in my database birth and death dates, I can rush past long lives in a few seconds. They fit in a cubicle. I copy and paste excerpts from biographies, census dates and those special ones who made the obscure count for something. We know being famous is overrated. We're all in that famous category in Heaven. Papa made each one of us significant and alive with purpose. But on earth, it takes a famous person to make the rest count.

In the US, we are all related to a few immigrants sharing a taste for freedom. Genealogy is the number one hobby in the world now. I wonder why. For me, it's fun to take my family and see how we all connect. Each family is unique in bloodlines. We have DNA testing for the very curious. It sure quiets disputes and rumors.

In 2010, DNA answered many questions in my Graves line. Elvis is my cousin. For me, it makes me want to take a closer look at him as a person. He also serves as another lead, a stepping stone in a huge pond, down the ancestry line. And he looks a lot like my daughter :)

Agnes Sanford is also my cousin. I first recognized her by the familiarity of her writings. I wanted to get a good look at her and quickly found a web pic. Wow. She looks just like me. I traced her line no further than her mother and found the Graves name. I'm getting good at recognizing facial structures. A Graves reunion of 300 relatives showed me stark, expressive commonalities over the years. Agnes is so fun to be related to. She began the inner healing movement in the 60s. I've been involved heavily in it from 2000 to present. Everything we do in Christendom is based in her work, from Cleansing Stream to Elijah House to Bethel's ministry in Redding, to Vineyard Christian Fellowships, and on it goes globally. Agnes was healed one day and was never the same.

Whatever draws our interest, Papa takes us deep into good things. Wisdom is gained and we see our uniqueness and Papa's orchestration in granting life, an incomprehensible story.

For this work, I've laid aside the book I so want to finish writing. I'm drawn to the revelation of secrets and Papa's inner workings. I know I need to take a break from the genealogy and hunker down, Papa style, and write with Him the ending of MT2. There is nothing more refreshing than writing this way.